January 21, 2015

On Thursday, I'll be doing a webinar with my friends at Chute where you will get a great look at how to effectively market content or content market or something like that. There was a rehearsal. I learned stuff. You might too. Or you can at least block out the time so no one books more meetings on your calendar. Win win!

Q: What do you think is the biggest opportunity and the biggest hurdle for brand marketers in 2015?

A: The biggest hurdle is that a lot of social activity is happening in places where it’s hard to monitor content and target consumers – especially messaging apps like Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Line. Consumers in such channels don’t want a hard sell, and if there’s too much advertising, the barriers to switching chat apps is fairly low. Just consider Facebook’s own properties. When someone’s using WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger today, they’re not exposed to any marketing messages. It will be very interesting to see how that changes this year.

Given that these messaging apps collectively have billions of users altogether, albeit with some amount of overlap, there is a tremendous opportunity for those apps to work with marketers and come up with ways for marketing to add value to the app experiences.

The Public CES is the one the media covers. Want to see the curved 4K TVs with OLED or whatever nanoparticles that make the picture a million times better than the set you bought last year? Want to see the new smart washing machine that has a smaller version of a washing machine built into it? (That’s a real product from LG.) Want to see lots of models running on treadmills to show off wearable devices? Want to see that startup being crowdfunded by the entrepreneur whose startup there last year didn’t meet its crowdfunding goal so he’s copying the guy in the booth next to him? All that and more abounds in the Public CES...

The other CES is the Shadow CES. This is the one that tends not to get as much attention, but for some brands, it’s more productive. It happens at places like the Cosmopolitan or Four Seasons. A more official version of the Shadow CES took place at the Aria this year. Dubbed the C-Space, it was where marketers could meet up with established media companies like NBC Universal and emerging ones like Samba TV. They could also meet with each other. I joined one private discussion with select executives from an advertising trade association. While it had little to do with CES directly, it was a terrific opportunity to learn from these people who I wouldn’t have readily met otherwise.

There's a lot more about this Second CES, so head to LinkedIn for far more context on this theme, and your comments are welcome there as well. It's actually the fourth post I've shared on LinkedIn, and except to see more there this year, especially when I have some thoughts that aren't a natural fit for an outlet like Ad Age, which will continue to be my go-to.

November 10, 2014

Pardon some light posting lately, as I had some wonderful travels across Israel and Italy on vacation, followed by a trip to Spain for work. More on that in a moment.

Here's where I'll be this month. Let me know if you're at any of these events.

First, where I've been: I was just in Madrid speaking at Ideagoras 2014 at the BBVA Innovation Center, thanks to the invite by the incomparable host Angel Gonzalez. You can read a great recap of observations from my fellow speaker Silja Chouquet on Medium. Ideagoras also posted an excellent Storify to share the highlights. You can also find a video of my presentation (without the slides), and a press interview video too. Beyond Silja, it was a real pleasure to meet Leif Abraham, Alexandra Mecklenburg, Alex Gibelalde, Ryan Skinner, and Antonella Broglia, along with the gracias Ideagoras team.

Then comes the Brand Innovators summit on Millennials November 11. I know a lot about them. I'm kind of married to one. I don't even know as the definition of a Millennial keeps shifting. It will be fun being on a session moderated by my old college associate from student government Andrea Wolinetz, as well as Angela Gruszka from one of my favorite stores, ABC Carpet & Home.

Then I go out to San Francisco November 12 to officially open my agency's MRY West office.

While there, I will be speaking at the M1 Summit on cars and smartphones. This presentation will be a little more nuts than the usual fare, but only because Nihal Mehta has higher standards than the usual event organizer.

Finally, more or less, it's a pleasure hosting UJA Federation of New York's event onthe future of wearable technologywith Rom Eizenberg, Jeff Berman, Andrew Rosenthal, and Billie Whitehouse. The fun part of moderating this one is that there are quite a few questions I want answers to, so come and ask your own as well.

October 06, 2014

It feels like it was ages since HubSpot's Inbound 2014, especially during a jam-packed event season that has included Advertising Week NY, Advertising Week Maryland and Baltimore's Digital Summit, Tech Week NYC, and so much more. But... I did finally get around to reading their highlight deck, and given how many fantastic speakers they brought together, here's a sampler platter.

September 19, 2014

At HubSpot's Inbound 2014 conference this week, I had the honor of giving one of their Bold Talks, which meant 12 minutes to talk about anything I wanted, as long as it wasn't a typical presentation about my day job.

I used the time to pick apart a word I find so overused: "storytelling." You can see the presentation below in its entirety (complete with dozens of illustrations), and I'll share more soon. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

September 15, 2014

Event season is upon us! At least, it is for me. Let me know if we'll intersect at any of these events or in any of these cities:

September 14-15: I'll be out in Montauk for an ad intelligence company's private summit. I don't know what can be disclosed, but there's probably only one happening there then.

September 16: I'll be speaking that day at Inbound 2014 in Boston, bringing to life a story I've been working on for awhile - A Story about the End of Storytelling - as one of its Bold Talks. I'll also take part in an Ask Me Anything dialogue on the presentation afterward, so stay tuned to inbound.org/david.

September 30: Does twice make a tradition? It's my second time speaking in Baltimore, and my second time doing so at an event with Don Steele. Down at Baltimore Advertising Week's Digital Summit, I'll be presenting some research from MRY's new study on How We Connect to Our Cars and share what that means for mobile marketing, and also moderating a panel on Navigating the Evolving Digital Landscape with execs from LinkedIn, UMUC, Verizon Enterprise Solutions, and OpiaTalk.

October 1: At NewCo New York, where you can bounce around some of the most innovative companies, there are only two agencies you can visit, and MRY is one of them. Expect a riveting talk on predictive marketing. And some really good coffee, from what I hear (I prefer tea).

October 2: In the evening, I'll team up with my old friend Greg Galant at the Shorty Awards to host their Advertising Week Cocktail Bash. I may need to Vine something, or Hyperlapse it if someone from Facebook shows up. We can Hyperlapse each other vining. You can RSVP here.

October 9: I don't believe I've had the pleasure of presenting in the fine state of Michigan. That will change, thanks to an event I'm keynoting, and I'll share details on that soon too.

Then there's a jaunt to Tel Aviv, Florence, and Rome. Recommendations welcome.

November 13: Finally (for now), a long overdue trip to San Francisco is on the horizon when I join the M1 Summit. I may be planning a little something else in conjunction with my West Coast office, so contact me if you're interested in hearing more should that all come together.

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Who's David?

David Berkowitz is Chief Marketing Officer at agency MRY. A frequent speaker and media pundit, he has been published hundreds of times in MediaPost, Ad Age, eMarketer, Mashable, and elsewhere. Get to know him in the links below the blog's header.